The GROW model: a powerful way to work towards your goals
In this week's Career Theory Moment, we're exploring one of the most popular coaching models: the GROW model. It’s something that a career coach may use with you, but you can also use it yourself to figure out how you’ll work towards your goals.
GROW is a simple yet powerful structure. G is for Goals, R is for Reality, O is for Options and W is for what you Will do. Whilst the model's origins are sometimes debated, Sir John Whitmore is generally credited with developing it in the 1990s.
Goals. It may seem counterintuitive to set goals before you consider your current reality. However Whitmore says that you are likely to get more stretching and creative goals this way around, rather than incremental changes to your current situation. There are two categories of goal to discuss. The first is your overarching goal. This might be to find a job in a certain industry, or clarify your career direction. Secondly, the specific goal for the coaching session - this could be how to go about your job search, or the skills you'd like to use in your future career. It’s important that the goals are set by you. Although your coach will help you to narrow or refine your goals for the session, ultimately the topic that you discuss will be your choice. You’ve probably heard of setting SMART goals, and this is no bad thing. Goals should also be phased positively (unlike the last sentence!)
Reality: The aim of this part of the discussion is for you to be clear about where you are at the moment, and how you’ve got here. It’s also a chance for your coach to develop a deeper understanding of your current situation. They’re likely to ask you open, exploratory questions, encouraging you to think and examine your story. They may highlight any contradictory statements in what you are saying, or comment on any feelings they observe in you.
Options: There are two stages here. Firstly, generating a list of possible options. Secondly: narrowing this down to a list of possibilities for further investigation. When you’re generating options it’s best to avoid assessing them, as you may discount some good ideas. You will be principally the one coming up with the options rather than your coach (I’ll write a future article on why your coach won’t tell you what to do!). However, they will help you to structure the process and challenge you to develop more ideas and new ways of thinking.
Will: What are you going to do to move towards your goals? Here you're coming up with actionable steps that you can take. The more specific your actions, the more likely you are to follow through. So your coach might ask questions to help you pin down when you’ll carry out that activity, what might get in the way, any support that you need, and so on. A common question is to rate your commitment level (from 1 to 10) for each action and explore what could increase this commitment.
As you can see, the GROW model is pretty simple, which is one of the reasons for its popularity. Despite this, it gives a solid structure to a coaching session, ensuring that you make the best use of your time.